A Slow and Simple Christmas
Walking on, Black Friday pilgrimage special, and ideas for a sane season
Stay tuned for a compilation of IRL communities and practical ways that people can make them happen. Whether it is just meeting with a couple of friends, arranging regular gatherings, or creating living communites, we’d would love to hear from you! Please share in the comments your experience of getting together with people, whether it be 2, 20, or 200. How do you do it?
At the end of October,
and I invited our readers to join us in The Walking Rebellion:There might not be any natural remedy in the world as protective as walking against the deadening impact of our sedentary, chair-bound, screen-mesmerized lives. Walking is the original form of scrolling. Yet it doesn’t lead us down online rabbit holes, but past real rabbit holes. It keeps us grounded, literally by keeping our feet on the ground. It keeps us softly fascinated by ever-changing scenery. Walking is calming, head-clearing, and social and even spiritual when we do it together. If walking were a food, it would be a celebrated superfood packed with nutrients that feed our mind, body, relationships, and contact with nature—and it would cost nothing.
Over 160 people joined us in committing to going on a daily “tech-naked” walk for a minimum of 20 minutes. For us this meant continuing our routine of morning walks in the nearby forest before school lessons, a stroll through the neighbourhood before dinner, and a hike to the local farmers’ market on weekends. The long walks in particular were wonderfully conducive to talking through deep thoughts, conundrums, and coming up with new ideas.
Here are some notes that our readers shared about their experience of the Walking Rebellion:
Because of the Walking Rebellion, today I happened to go for my walk just about the time that parents were leaving to take their kids to school. Though my expectations weren’t high, I made a point of greeting people, smiling and saying, “Good morning!” Lo and behold, each one responded! I had positive interchanges with close to ten people…Thanks, Ruth and Peco, for the incentive to make daily walks without a phone. It’s got me outside at a different time of day and finally connecting with my neighbours!
I came down with a cold just as the rebellion began. I have felt poorly enough that I might have been tempted to stay inside if I had not committed to walking at least 20 minutes a day. As it is, walking has helped to revive me. We are staying by the ocean, so I am also glad not to have missed out on beach walks.
A scene from my walking rebellion today: on my way with other pilgrims to pray an Akathist to the Archangel Michael at Saint Paisius Monastery.
What was your experience with the Walking Rebellion?
Did you observe any beneficial effects? What were they?
Did you encounter any challenges?
Please share your experience and reflections in the Comments section!
We hope that the Walking Rebellion helped to sow seeds for a continuing habit1 that helps to restore the mind and turn our attention to our immediate reality around us. We’ll be walking on…
Camino Pilgrimage Black Friday Special:
If you would like to join us on a most extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime walk, come along on our Pilgrimage out of the Machine on the Camino in Spain next June! You can read all about it here, or download the brochure and register here.
From midnight Eastern time on Friday, November 29, 2024, until 11:59 PM Eastern time on Sunday, December 1, 2024, any new registrants will receive a $250 discount. There will not be another discount like this one before we set foot on this ancient pilgrimage.
Whether as a gift for a student going off to college, an opportunity for spiritual renewal, or a “bucket-list” chance to follow the footsteps of the millions of pilgrims over the last 1000 years, take advantage and register.
We are excited to announce that
will be joining us as co-leader on the pilgrimage. Dixie is a Catholic historian, essayist, and editor who writes about education, family, faith, and tech resistance at her Substack, The Hollow. She received her doctorate from the University of Notre Dame and is an associate editor at Hearth & Field, a contributing editor at Front Porch Republic, and co-editor of the liturgical living . Dixie is thrilled to have the chance to deepen her faith by walking in the footsteps of so many centuries' worth of pilgrims, and hopes you will come and walk beside her!We would love for you to join us in visiting historic sites, sharing meals, building relationships, all while hiking through a naturally and spiritually inspiring landscape.
And while we are talking about special offers: keeping with the Hobbit tradition of giving others a gift on your birthday, I am happy to announce a 50% off special to School of the Unconformed on November 30th!
A Slow and Simple Christmas
“The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.”
-G.K. Chesterton
“Sometimes we buy things just to buy things” a father explained to his young daughter at the store. The girl stood in incomprehending silence. I felt for this father, who tried to convey a message that simply is not reflected in a society that has stripped meaning from this reflective season and replaced it with unsatiable consumption and frenzy.
Overhearing this conversation brought back to mind
’s comment2 from last year “People can't practice or do what they've never seen done. This is true of more analog and *human* ways of living in 2023. And modeling such lives can be contagious.” Over the years I have appreciated the great variety of simple and slow Christmas traditions in our friendship circle, and thought I would share a few of our own with you to help inspire a different approach to the season.Ever since our kids were little, we were intent on living out an Advent season filled with our traditions (Swiss and Macedonian), spending time creating, reading, walking, singing, baking, gathering, and focusing our hearts and minds on Christ’s birth. Not only do these simple practices help bind us as a family, they tie us to people throughout history. They focus our attention not just on buying gifts that often lose their splendor soon after they are opened, but engrain a deeper and lasting meaning to the season.
I. Advent Wreath
The tradition of the advent wreath was first introduced by the German Lutherans in the 16th century, but it became a more widely practiced tradition starting in the 1860s and spread to German Catholics in the 1920s, reaching the U.S. in the 1930s via German Lutheran immigrants.
In Switzerland Advent wreaths are a firmly established tradition that bring a reflective atmosphere into the home. At the end of November my mother used to bring home a pine wreath from the market, set with four red pillar candles. Sometimes there was a red ribbon woven over the branches and some pine cones set beside the candles. On the first Sunday of Advent (always the Sunday nearest to Nov. 30), we would would light the first candle, and one more candle was lit each following Sunday until Christmas.
In our family we light the candles each evening during dinner time, thus spending four weeks of candlelight dinners.
II. Advent Calendar
You’ll likely be familiar with the Advent calendar, which exists in myriad variations from pictures or chocolates to teas or daily craft ideas3. The most extravagant calendar we ever had was when my daughter was three, and my mother sent a parcel from Switzerland with 24 little packages hung from a hand-stitched wall tapestry for her to unwrap each day. While this was fun for her, we realized that it served to focus her attention on an endless series of gifts. In future years we had more simple calendars with pictures or chocolates. You can make your own picture calendars with drawings, stickers, or photos. You can also use empty match boxes, glue them together into a Christmas tree shape and place little treats or notes inside.
Here is one from a few years ago that tells the Nativity story:
This one is of my hometown Basel’s market square:
III. St. Nicholas Day
In many European countries St.Nicholas Day (December 6th) is celebrated as the day when “Santiglaus” comes to town. As
explainsOn December 5, the night before the Feast of St. Nicholas (a.k.a. Santa), children put their empty shoes in front of the hearth before they go to bed. In the morning, voilà! St. Nick has filled the shoes with chocolate coins!
It’s tied to the Christian year. It’s tied to old European customs. It’s tied to the actual story of St. Nicholas secretly providing dowries (in the form of coins) so that some poor young women could afford to marry.
In Switzerland we don’t use shoes, but instead St.Nicholas leaves a little burlap sack filled with walnuts, hazelnuts, clementines, and chocolates. These simple treats bring joy and offer a great opportunity to relate the history of this Saint. Here are our little bags waiting to be filled:
IV. Stories
One of my favorite parts of Advent when the children were younger, was our time spent on the couch reading Christmas stories (most often early in the morning or before and after dinner time). Toward the end of November we would venture to the library and check out dozens of Christmas stories. Some were fun, some predictable, but some were so moving and memorable that we bought them for our home library.
These are some of our all time favorites, especially because they draw attention to those in need: A Small Miracle is visually marvelous and tells a captivating story without words; we only just discovered Tolkien’s Letters From Father Christmas and love it; I dare anyone to read the Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey and not get teary; Shoemaker Martin is a story by Tolstoy that I listened to ever since I was a child, profoundly moving and meaningful.
Naturally A Christmas Carol is part of our Christmas tradition as well. In case you missed it, I wrote a whole post about it here:
Assign different roles and read A Christmas Carol for Children to Read out Loud together as a family (the complete reading takes about 45 min.).
Listen to an audio version of A Christmas Carol condensed by Charles Dickens for his dramatic reading.
We also enjoy listening to Christmas stories from Canadian raconteur Stuart McLean. These are hilarious and heartwarming stories that are sure to make you laugh out loud and can be enjoyed by young and old alike. We have all the CD sets of McLean’s “Vynil Cafe”, but you can listen to most of the stories online as well. Here are a few of our favorites:
Rashida, Amir, and the Great Gift Giving
V. Baking Cookies
We have not yet started on our cookie baking this year, but we’ll be preparing several batches of the Swiss classic Mailänderli (lemon butter cookie) for a Christmas party this weekend. Baking together is a highlight for me during these weeks, especially as it allows for extended conversations or listening to Christmas stories while we cut shapes or carefully apply the icing for the Zimtsterne4 (cinnamon stars). The recipe for Basler Brunsli (Basle Brownies, named after my hometown) dates back to the 1750s and is one of my absolute favorites. Both the Zimtsterne and Brunsli are made with ground almonds instead of flour and thus a perfect gluten-free treat.
Basler Brunsli - how I make them:
250 g sugar, 250 g ground almonds, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, - mix together in a bowl
2 egg whites - whip until stiff and then fold into the nut mixture
100 g dark chocolate - melt and mix together with the dough
roll the dough (on a little sugar or flour) to 5 mm thickness, use small cookie cutters to form shapes (hearts, starts, or bells are traditional)
let the cookies dry on the baking sheet for several hours, then bake for 5 min at high heat (425F)
Sometimes we invite friends to join us for cookie baking, which is always great fun. We also bring a small plate or treat bag of cookies to the neighbours on our street. Last year we even decided to host a neighbourhood open house for the seniors on our street for an afternoon of treats and hot drinks, which ended up turning into a splendid “cookie potluck” event!
VI. Writing a Christmas Newsletter
For the past ten years we have been writing a two-sided Christmas newsletter for friends and family, in which we share funny stories from the past year. Each of the children contributes a “column”, offering up unique insights into our family life over the year that will give people a good laugh. I compile all the articles into a newspaper-style layout with some photos, save the letter in pdf format, print up a colour version at the local copy store, send out a pile to close friends and family, and send the remainder via e-mail (international letter postage is expensive!).
In the past sections have included: domestic politics, international news (reporting on fun travel), best books/movies of the year, practical life lessons learned, “Dear Abbey” column, “The Last Laugh of the Year”, “How to Build a Chicken Coop”, “Fun Hobbies to Try”, “Top Five Disaster Prevention Tips”, Trivia Quiz, mini Christmas-themed role playing game, and “Thought du Jour” quotes.
Also see
’s post “Should you send a Christmas card this year?”VII: Jolabokaflod (Jólabókaflóðið)
I was introduced to this Icelandic tradition of giving books on Christmas Eve in one of
’s 5 Quick Things. She shared this wonderful Jokabokaflod site, where you can read all about the tradition:This tradition began during World War II once Iceland had gained its independence for Denmark in 1944. Paper was one of the few commodities not rationed during the war, so Icelanders shared their love of books even more as other types of gifts were short supply. This increase in giving books as presents reinforced Iceland’s culture as a nation of bookaholics – a study conducted by Bifröst University in 2013 found that half the country’s population read at least eight books a year.
Every year since 1944, the Icelandic book trade has published a catalogue – called Bókatíðindi (‘Book Bulletin’, in English) – that is sent to every household in the country in mid-November during the Reykjavik Book Fair. People use the catalogue to order books to give friends and family for Christmas.
During the festive season, gifts are opened on 24 December and, by tradition, everyone reads the books they have been given straight away, often while drinking hot chocolate or alcohol-free Christmas ale called jólabland.
Our family has put a bit of a twist on this tradition, buying used books from the thrift store for this book-giving exchange.
These simple traditions entail an attentive energy that over the weeks leading up to Christmas serve to build up our excitement and joy at Christ’s birth.
5reminds us that Advent is a time to go against the grain of the hurry and noise around us, “Gradually add the Christmas stuff: the decor, the movies, the music, the food.”Advent is both a time of slowing down and anticipation. Resist the urge to run along with the crowd and instead choose to keep a simple and slow Chistmas.
We’d love to hear what traditions you keep!
Please share your Advent and Christmas traditions with readers in the comments!
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Soon after the start of our walking project (and most certainly independent from it), “silent walking” became a TikTok trend according to this newspiece:
You can use lemon juice instead of Kirsch.
See Tsh’s wonderful post What, Why, & How to do Advent